According to the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law (FTBL) of 2014, the Telecommunications Federal Institute (IFT) must publish its Annual Work Plan (AWP) in January of each year. The 2018 AWP was approved on January 31 and, afterwards, published on the IFT website.
The AWP contains the activities that the IFT will carry out during the year, according to the following:
- Portfolio of projects
- Studies
- Reports
- Events and campaigns
- Recurring activities
The project are set according to the Institutional Strategic Plan of the IFT, whose objectives are in turn aligned with the National Development Plan 2013-2018.
The 5 main objectives of the Strategic Plan of the IFT are:
- Promote competition
- Promote universal access
- Guarantee the quality of service
- Encourage the rights of users
- Institutional strengthening
As it is supossed, the projects related to the objectives of institutional improvement were prioritized in the 2014 AWP (44% of the projects), priority that has been decreasing in time (16% of the projects in the 2017 AWP). The promotion of competition, the main reason for the telecommunications reform, covered most of the projects: 43% of the projects of the 2017 AWP.
During the period 2014-2017, the IFT has improved in the fulfillment of its plans. In fact, the IFT complied with 55%, 70%, 78% and 80% of the projects included in the AWP in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively.
It should be noted that many of the projects that were not carried out during a given year became part of the AWP in the next year. Additionally, due to the dynamic nature of telecommunications, there were projects carried out that were not initially included in the AWP (although they were reported in the quarterly activity reports).
Before reviewing the projects included in the 2018 AWP, it is worth remembering that the 2017 AWP established a vision for 2025, so some projects that were not carried out in 2017 and are not found in the 2018 AWP could still be kept on the IFT agenda.
Projects included in the 2018 AWP
The projects included in the 2018 AWP, aligned to the objectives and strategies of the Strategic Institutional Plan of the IFT, are summarized in the following table:
We note that, considering a total of 51 projects, 22 projects (43%) are aimed at boosting competition, 4 projects (8%) promote universal access, 11 projects (22%) guarantee quality of service, 6 projects (12%) are aimed at the promotion of user rights, and 8 projects (16%) are about the institutional strengthening of the IFT.
Some of the projects have already been published as preliminary projects for comments, while other projects have already been scheduled in the public consultation calendar for 2018. Other projects start a first phase in 2018, but will be completed in 2019.
Promote competition
- Functional separation
- Wholesale costs model
- Asymmetric regulation
- Criteria to define markets
- Criteria to determine the influence of operators
- Criteria for precautionary measures
- Net neutrality
- Technical and economic interconnection conditions in 2019
- Interconnection framework agreements
- Guidelines for complaints of anti-competitive practices
- Guidelines for researching anti-competitive practices
- Guidelines for the establishment of anti-competitive practices fines
- Infrastructure sharing reference offers
- Reference offers for wholesale services
- Price cap of preponderance
- Price cap of the TELMEX-TELNOR concession
- Tenders of 10 MHz in the 400 MHz band,120 MHz in the 2500 MHz band; and broadcasting
- Frequency band program 2019
- Spectral efficiency metrics
- Strengthen spectrum surveillance
Promote universal access
- Guidelines for the deployment of infrastructure
- Guidelines for the creation of the national infrastructure information system
- National infrastructure information system
- Transition from IPV4 protocol to IPV6
Guarantee the quality of service
- Technical provisions for non-ionizing radiation and microwave and transmission equipment
- Quality of service evaluation procedure
- Guidelines for broadband service, fixed service and equipment homologation
- Guidelines for accrediting supervisory units
- Mobile service quality monitoring platform
Encourage the rights of users
- Guidelines for accessing the TV service
- Guidelines for the maximum time of advertising
- Guidelines for the common emergency alert
- Obtain information to analyze the plurality and diversity of contents
- Transparency of information by the operators
- Online consultation of broadcasting coverages
Institutional strengthening
- Adopt the IPV6 standard
- Strengthen professional service system
- Rebuild historical statistics
- Information system of media and audiovisual content
- Microsites of open budget data
- Microsites of open state procurement
- Electronic system to administer the Regulatory Impact Analysis
- Comprehensive electronic government strategy
Other activities: studies, reports and recurring activities
In addition to the projects, during 2018 the IFT has scheduled to conduct 22 studies on topics related to coverage, penetration of services, tariffs, use of services, impact of contents, foresight of the sector, among others.
In addition, the IFT will prepare reports and other documents reporting the progress of its activities, sector statistics, digital terrestrial television (DTT) results, cybersecurity plans, comparisons of tariffs and plans, among others.
It will also carry out events and campaigns in order to educate the population about the use of ICT (with gender equity).
Finally, the 2018 AWP also includes the recurrent activities of the IFT, such as supervisory actions, quality of service measurements, revenue collection, budget reports, resolutions on interconnection disagreements, computer developments, etc.
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